Calgary police body cameras to include tech enabling real

The Calgary Police Service (CPS) will soon activate new technology experts believe will break cultural barriers by helping bridge communication gaps between officers and patrons.

Starting Monday, all body cameras worn by police officers to ensure transparency will now be able to translate more than 60 languages. This gives officers the ability to talk one on one with someone who doesn’t speak the same language in real time.

During Wednesday’s Calgary Police Commission meeting, chair Amtul Siddiqui says CPS is the first police service across Canada to provide this technology to its officers.

“I think anything that we can do, from a service or commission level, to be more inclusive in the city that we serve, that’s fantastic,” says Siddiqui.

“This is going to be great, not only for community members, but actually for officers as well because it provides that back-and-forth communication and evidence as well.”

How it will work is when officers are interacting with a member of public who speaks a different language, by pushing a button on their body-worn camera, it will identify the language that needs to be interpreted.

As Calgary becomes more diverse, experts say police will continue to run into language barriers but this technology will help bridge those cultural gaps. They do stress that the translation must be accurate.

“Also respect privacy,” says The Immigrant Education Society president and CEO Sally Zhao, “and also AI can never replace human judgment.

“Also, there’s a cultural awareness as well for the diversity community.”

Mount Royal University Criminologist Doug King says having real-time translation will make things safer and start to build community trust, especially for those who come from countries where trust for police is low.

“Some people coming from other cultures have a really mixed opinions about policing. They have not been treated well, the police agency have not treated them well, so this is instantly going to break down barriers and it’s instantly going to start to build some report,” says King.

Zhoa says even without a language barrier, interactions with police can already be a stressful situation.

“With a translator, I think that really can help people being fully understood and also and fully understanding what is being said to them,” says Zhao.

Calgary police say the new translation tool is included through the police service’s existing body camera provider and that the new feature will cost several hundred thousand dollars over the course of the five-year contract.